Even in the requisite subdued light, Will Andrews’ fishing schooner models in the Cape Ann Museum drew my attention and admiration during a 2019 visit. Thankfully, Linda Andrews wisely encouraged her husband to gather and publish his research about the shipbuilding and deep-sea fishing communities of Cape Ann and the maritime, historical, societal, and economic, context of these iconic vessels produced and worked from about 1847-1930.
The waterborne heroines of this story are Essex- and Gloucester-built, Gloucester-outfitted and operated, two-masted, gaff-rigged, fishing schooners. Each selected as an exemplar of the uneven evolution in form and function of their sisters. Their quintessentially American story includes the all too frequent devastating losses of life and property on the North Atlantic, and how they heavily influenced purpose-built vessel development. Improvements, sadly not introduced proactively in most cases, but as belated reactions to the sea having claimed so many loved ones.
The physical appearance of each chosen schooner is memorialized in 1:48-scale model form, the meticulous products of Will’s relentless research and uncompromising craftsmanship. With each, he accomplishes the goal of every serious marine model artist “to create a compelling impression of the original vessel.” (Napier).
The author and the content of this volume—graciously dedicated to Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr., absolutely deserve a place in the pantheon of devoted historians and works, listed in the Bibliography. And I commend Andrews for your consideration.
If you aspire to build models of any of the selected schooners, may I suggest you also have Howard Irving Chapelle’s The American Fishing Schooners ~ 1825-1930 close at hand. The drawings in there—lines plans, and of the rather unique fittings and machinery of Gloucestermen, are laudably clear. They provide a sort of visual glossary, and thereby excellent complements to Andrews’ illuminating definition of each, which includes the answer to “How was this used?” (Weinstein). Moreover, the index speeds finding items of your interest.
The photographs of Andrews’ models are worthy of careful study. The lack of captions or interpretive text placed nearby each photograph may encourage a bit of bookmarking in the section about the namesake vessel and the corresponding photograph pages, to move more easily and confidently back and forth. One is inclined to create one’s own customized index, just for the schooner of interest.
The last chapters of Will’s well-told story are forthright but bittersweet. The “War to end all wars” had just been won. The International Fishermen’s Races with Canadian designers, and the seaborne steeds they bred, and campaigned, celebrated a return to normalcy. But the victory, not unlike that global conflict, was short lived. Flyers that attained the pinnacle as inspiring functional works of art in wood, were replaced by transitional utilitarian draggers, and combustion engine-powered, steel, “Ugly Ducklings”. - - Randle McLean Biddle (Nautical Research Journal, Volume 69, 2024, Issue 3, Autumn)
